I tried to send this out in an email which most guys didn't get, I'm not sure why. I made it into a web page to post on the site. I linked some of the wording to the pictures I took to help illustrate what happened. I was ticked off when I got home and more so after a few beers! Here is the letter: Sunday 6 May 07

 

"Mike and I were the only ones to show up for the second wiring party. We arrived almost the same time Friday. I was opening the front door lock when Mike showed up.

 

We worked a few hours on Friday afternoon, I spread the insect killer around the camp, the front yard, down to the ram pump (which was still chugging away since our last trip 2 weeks ago) around the crapper and also the horse shoe area. It may need another bag next fall. Mike put the rest of the flashing on the new windows while I killed bugs.

 

We did a little electrical stuff Friday but really busted hump Saturday. We started right after breakfast and the sun was going down Saturday when we decided to give it the “smoke test”. I ran my generator the whole time we were there and also for our last trip 2 weeks ago. As I said before, I never go to camp with out my generator and now you’ll see why!

 

All camp wiring is updated from the breaker box to the devices in camp including the stuff that was run a few years ago. It’s regular wire with grounds on all the fixtures and outlets that use ground. The lights are only two wires but they are all now correctly polarized for safety. The old wire was either cutoff and pulled out or stuffed back up into the ceiling or wall. We still need to install a ground rod by the power shanty and ground the system to it.

 

Mike and I added a bunch of new outlets including one next to the cooking area, a 4 banger above the china cabinet, one next to the furnace for the fan, and one upstairs on the baseboard under the clothing rack. All the outlets run off one 20 Amp breaker in the “new” breaker box. The lights are on a 15 Amp breaker. One exception is the light over the cooking area; it’s tied into the outlet line just in case. I’ll update my drawings on my web site in a few days. I’ll also print them out and seal them in plastic for future reference. Something I wish the old timers had done!

 

I rebuilt the main florescent light at home and added a plug for connection. It plugs into a switched outlet box mounted on the ceiling. I upgraded the three lights downstairs with new fixtures, 100 watt curly bulbs and frosted glass shades. Plenty of light now. We removed the light over the stove and put a new one directly over the counter. The old one was gunked up pretty bad with cooking grease, ugh!

 

The outside lights have a new switch by the door a little lower than the old one. There’s now a pull chain switch light in the coal bin. Mike installed the upstairs light recessed fixture, I connected the wiring. It has a 100 watt curly bulb in it. (Bill, there’s plenty of light.) All the old wiring in the porch attic was ripped out and rewired. My knees still hurt!  I took lots of pictures I’ll post later.

 

The big double plug cable for the camp generator is wired into the new breaker box main switch. I cut it shorter and soldered the bare wire ends at home last week so the breaker screws would grip the stranded wire better. The camp main input wires are connected to the two breakers in the box; one 20 Amp, one 15 Amp.

 

I found the camp generator double plug end would not fit my generator last week at home, so I made a short adapter outlet cable to run between my generator and the double plug cable. As it turned out I wired my adapter wrong. When I tried to run the camp through it for a smoke test, my GFI breaker kept blowing. Finally it arced and quit altogether. So much for the smoke test. Now I had no way to hook my generator into the camp. We needed to run the camp generator.

 

All day long I checked the wiring with a meter as I went along to make sure I was connecting things up right. So we plugged in the camp generator, fired it up and it smoked like hell. Black exhaust smoke like it had been on choke too long.  Let me state here and now, before we even started it the choke was already on and the run switch was on. Somebody left it that way. We tried checking lights and outlets for a couple minutes when the generator crapped out. Mike said the oil seemed a bit blacker than normal. There was a log entry that several ounces of oil had been added but not whether it was synthetic or not.

 

Since most modern units have a low oil shutoff I thought maybe that was it. We checked and the oil was the right level but extremely dirty. It would not start no matter what I tried. Here we were, my generator outlet was fried and the camp generator won’t start and it was getting darker. I had no connector plug for the other outlet on my genny which was putting out 120 volts on the meter but no way to connect it up. I finally pulled the front panel on mine, swapped out the GFI for a regular outlet from my electrical supplies, figured out why my camp adapter was screwed up and got things connected and we had juice once more. All the lights and outlets worked except the microwave outlet. Minor problem we fixed on Sunday morning. Loose neutral wire.

 

Back to the camp generator. I pulled the spark plug and it was ugly; carboned up and filthy with soot. So was the muffler screen. I cleaned the plug as best I could and pulled off the carburetor float bowl. It had a small amount of reddish residue but nothing that would cause problems. Put it all back together and got it started, it ran rough for several minutes, belched black smoke a while then settled down. We turned it off after about 15 minutes or so and went inside to fix supper and enjoy the new lights and outlets, on my generator! We moved the coffee pot over to the cooking counter. Mike took the one kerosene lamp above the sink, no need to have someone fire it up and cook the main terminal box!  We put the radio up there instead.

 

Sunday morning I fixed the loose wire for the microwave outlet. After breakfast Mike vacuumed up our mess while I installed the light in the coal bin to finish the electrical work. He also caulked an area by the furnace near where the coal buckets sit. The wall had separated and we think the mice were getting in there. We changed the oil in the camp generator. I used the few ounces of 5W30 Mobil 1 that was left and filled up the rest from a quart of 5W30 Amsoil I had for my truck, both synthetic. I left the rest for future use. (Rich, I’ll add that to the final bill when I sort through the bag of receipts for the electrical parts).

 

There was also a partial pair of tidy whitey shorts in the fire pit that had shit on them! Mike says they weren’t his. I only wear colorful nylon shorts. Anybody we know? They didn’t seem large enough to be an adult size but I wasn’t into that close an inspection! Mike burned them with oil from the lamp. There was also a new broom inside next to the door which we swear wasn’t there 2 weeks ago. I know the shitty shorts weren’t for sure!

 

The last entry in the genny log was Tom and John Smith who ran it for a couple hours. They logged several ounces of oil added. No mention of what oil. No mention of problems. My opinion is the generator was run with the choke left on. I don’t know how else the plug could get that messed up and the oil burned to molasses.  Tom, if you and John had a problem with it there should have been a log entry. Since there wasn’t, I have to assume there was someone else at camp recently that was too damn stupid to operate the generator properly. There were no entries in the camp log. But that’s happened before where someone spent time at camp and never logged the visit. If someone called Frank maybe he knows who it was. Otherwise, we have no way of knowing. Most of the e-mailers drop a note about their trips. Or, someone has keys they shouldn’t have with free run of the camp or worse yet, one of our members is a crummy jerk with no regard for community property! (I substituted crummy jerk for lousy bastard for PC purposes.)

 

The big question here is how much damage was done to the generator. Too much fuel intake washes away the oil on the cylinders and you get metal to metal contact with no lubrication. That’s what finally killed the old Honda, running it with crappy oil for too long. It looks like we may be in the same boat again. The only thing in its favor is we had synthetic oil in it. Even so there’s only so much synthetic can do in that situation. The question remains: who ran it like that and for how long? That pisses me off, not knowing who screwed up. Somebody knows and I’d like to find out.

 

Oh yeah, the place needs a good cleanup under the beds and downstairs painting. However, the 7 assorted gallon cans of paint that were at camp are ruined. We never used them so they solidified, froze, whatever. Mike was going to touch up some of our work and none of the paint was any good. Sorry Greg. I dragged them home for disposal.

 

Anyway, I’m relieved the electrical stuff is done, it was long overdue. I’m amazed we didn’t have an incident before this after seeing the condition of the old wire. The only thing left is the ground rod. Have fun because I’ve decided I’m finished. What remaining trips I make out there will probably be for communing with nature! When I turn in my bill for the electrical parts (and get paid!) I will officially resign from active status at camp. No more dues, no more work parties, woodcutting, hunting, cleanup, etc. Take my name off the list, I'm finished. I can find other stuff to do.

 

I might tag along if certain members invite me to attend gatherings but at this point I don’t feel I can fight it anymore. My wife always used to tell me certain members didn’t want me in the Camp but I ignored her. Now I think she may have been right. I don’t have a good feeling where the camp is heading. We now have the second crew members nearing retirement and not many younger third crew members stepping up to fill in and pull their weight. Or maybe the “newer” generation of members doesn’t feel the same way the second crew does or first crew did.  I may be wrong, but that’s my perception at this point. I always see basically the same small handful of people for work parties or whatever. My last count is we had 16 members, some I probably wouldn’t know if I bumped into them on the street.

 

The original first crew is all gone. God rest their souls. I don’t know if they ever had a “plan” for the camp, I never read one, just rumors and bullshit. Hey, let’s have a camp meeting! On the other hand, never mind. They were also rumors and bullshit.

 

Adios"